Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 16 Paid Members Share Posted July 16 (edited) Try to contain your excitement, it’s Apex fight week again… ESPN MAIN CARDAmanda Lemos vs Virna Jandiroba Steve Garcia vs Seung Woo Choi Kurt Holobaugh vs Kaynan Kruschewsky Cody Durden vs Bruno Silva Bill Algeo vs Doo Ho Choi Hyder Amil vs Jeong Yeong Lee ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMSBrian Kelleher vs Cody Gibson Miranda Maverick vs Dione Barbosa Loik Radzhabov vs Trey Ogden Luana Carolina vs Lucie Pudilova Mohammed Usman vs Thomas Petersen Has a card ever looked more Apex than this? And while I’m at it, why do the UFC’s graphics department do better posters for these nothing happening Apex cards than they do for the big PPVs? I really like that poster, it’s just odd they’ve wasted it on a fight like Lemos vs Jandiroba. Compare this poster to the mess they’ve cobbled together for 304 the following week ? Anyway, whatever. This…it isn’t good, is it? Couple of fights and fighters I’ll tune in for but I’m gonna be skimming through a LOT of this. Amanda Lemos vs Virna Jandiroba headlines then. Whether we like it or not. I actually haven’t minded watching these two but there’s no getting around the fact that, as a main event, this is just dead on arrival. Absolutely reeks of Apex, doesn’t it? I mean, Lemos is ranked #3 as I type this and Jandiroba’s at #5. So I can kind of see why it’s been given top billing here, you can justify it in that sense. Doesn’t mean we have to like it though. Lemos is 37 years old now with a record of 14-3-1 and 11 finishes. Say what you want about her, unlike a lot of the 115lbers, she’s a finisher and she goes for the kill. She packs a punch for a Strawweight as well. She’s been on the UFC roster since 2017 and has beat the likes of Angela Hill, Michelle Waterson, Marina Rodriguez and in her last fight in February she pretty much battered Mackenzie Dern to a decision win in the FOTN at UFC 298. She’s far from the worst in the division but she’s hit her ceiling a couple of times and, at 37, she’s on borrowed time now. She already challenged for the title last year, losing on points to the champ Zhang Weili last August. She showed toughness to go the distance in that one but it was a mugging from what I recall of it. And at this stage in her career, she is what she is. She’s not gonna be making any significant changes or improvements when she’s pushing 40, is she? Jandiroba’s not much younger at 36 years old. She’s a BJJ black-belt, 20-3 in MMA with 14 wins coming inside the distance, 13 of them via submission. She’s coming into this fight off 3 straight wins over Angela Hill, Marina Rodriguez and Loopy Godinez. Can’t say I remember much about any of them but it’s a 3 fight winning streak so she’s obviously on the right track. I like Jandiroba. She hasn’t always been the most exciting to watch but I find her incredibly likeable in the little bits and pieces I’ve seen and read. She’s very much a one trick pony as far as I can tell though. Her grappling is quality and she does some cool stuff with it. But her striking is shite. And again, at 36, she’s not gonna be making any real progress in that area at this point. There you have it. I don’t even hate the matchup itself but it’s got no business headlining anything. Like I said, I kind of get it from a rankings perspective. But man, it’s weak as piss for a main event. I’ll watch it because I watch almost everything but I’ll be surprised if it’s much good. I’ll be rooting for Jandiroba but I don’t know how this is gonna play out. Honestly I can see her having trouble getting Lemos down to even get her grappling going but I can also see Lemos being more hesitant in the striking for fear of being taken down. It could be a frustrating one. Then again, Lemos actually got subbed by a standing arm triangle of all things against Jessica Andrade not that long ago. So that doesn’t say much for her BJJ defence. We’ll see. Or maybe not if we all skip it. Steve Garcia vs Seung Woo Choi could be decent actually. Neither are big names or anything but I can see it being an entertaining enough watch. I’ve really enjoyed some of Garcia’s more recent fights. He’s 15-5 and had mixed results when he first got in the UFC but since dropping back to Featherweight in late 2022, he’s gone 3-0 and actually looked a bit of a handful. He’s stopped Chase Hooper, Shayilan Nuerdanbieke and Melquizael Costa in consecutive fights. Although that Costa fight was back at 155 because it got pushed back a week or something from another card on short notice. Either way, he destroyed Costa… Just wrecked him with horrible ground and pound. OK, he hasn’t been beating a who’s who of the division but his performances have noticeably improved since moving back to 145. He looks like a different fighter and something about that weight cut seems to have brought out the more nasty and aggressive side of him. South Korean Choi I’m less familiar with. He’s 11-6 with 6 knockouts and he’s coming off a points win over Jarno Errens on the Singapore card last August. Can’t say I recall that one but he snapped a 3 fight losing skid that night so it was a win he badly needed. I actually remember his losing effort against Mike Trizano was a cracking one round shootout. If he fights like that against Garcia this might steal the show. Yeah, not much competition and it’s not a hard show to steal but it could be a fun one. Kurt Holobaugh vs Kaynan Kruschewsky. Whatever. Not gonna pretend to give a bollocks but I’ll go through the motions. Holobaugh’s 37 with a record of 20-7-0-1 and is coming off a decision loss to Trey Ogden in March. He did win TUF last year, submitting Austin Hubbard in the finals, but this is his second stint in the UFC and I can’t see it amounting to much. Kruschewsky’s 33 with a 15-2-0-1 record. He won a fight on DWCS last September, made his UFC debut on the São Paulo card in November and got sparked out cold by Elves Brener in a round. Just completely Flair Flopped and faceplanted. Not the best way to make your debut and to add insult to injury São Paulo is his hometown. It can only get better after that, surely? Cody Durden vs Bruno Silva then. Obviously this isn’t Middleweight Bruno Silva who fought Alex Pereira! These are Flyweights. This might be alright, to be fair. I’ve long thought Durden seems a bit of a prick but, in fairness to him, he’s had some cracking fights. I’ve got to begrudgingly give him his due. Early in his UFC run he got subbed by Jimmy Flick via flying triangle of all things! Then in 2022, he got bulldozed by Muhammad Mokaev in less than a minute. Those are the kind of losses that can completely derail a career and kill a guy’s confidence for good. But Durden bounced back with a 4 fight win streak and beat Carlos Mota, Charles Johnson and Jake Hadley in consecutive fights. All fights he was probably expected to lose and I specifically remember the Hadley fight in particular being an absolute belter. Fair play. Still seems a cock though, so I was quite happy to see him get subbed by Tagir Ulanbekov in his last fight in December. Silva’s 13-5-2-1 with 9 finishes and I vaguely recall him being fairly exciting to watch as well. Emphasis on the word ‘vaguely’ though because Silva’s been pretty inactive and I’m hazy on him. He’s on a 3 fight win streak and got POTN bonuses in all 3 fights. But we haven’t seen him since March 2023 when he subbed Tyson Nam. Bill Algeo vs Doo Ho Choi is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** on this one. Wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice, it’s a stupidly thin card. But this fight did stand out to me. Algeo’s yet to bore me. He’s 35 years old and 18-8 with 11 finishes. He’s never gonna make a run at UFC gold or anything but I’ve enjoyed watching him. He does have some solid wins over the likes of Spike Carlyle (remember him?), Joanderson Brito and Herbert Burns. And last year he submitted TJ Brown in a fantastic hidden gem of a fight and took a decision off Alexander Hernandez. Unfortunately, his inconsistency bit him in the arse again last time out and he got stopped in a round by Kyle Nelson on the Atlantic City card in March. The return of the ‘Korean Superboy’ is the draw here for me though. Believe it or not he’s 33 years old now. I still wouldn’t sell him a can of Monster. Don’t know what to make of him at this point. There was a time when he was being talked about as a serious prospect and MMA media and fans were buzzing about him. He came into the UFC way back in 2015 and had gone 14-1 initially in his career. His first two fights in the UFC he scored first round knockouts over Sam Sicilia and Thiago Tavares. He looked legit. Then in December 2016 he had his big step up against Cub Swanson and they had that crazy FOTY contender. Choi lost on points and he’s just never got back on track in the 8 years since. Was he just never that good or did the war with Swanson ruin him? Since that fight he’s only fought 3 times. He got stopped by Jeremy Stephens and Charles Jourdain in 2018/19. Then we never saw him again until February 2023, and he went to a draw with Kyle Nelson. Now here he is again coming back after another 18 month layoff. Fuck knows what we’re getting now. It’s a shame. When he came in all those years ago it really seemed like he might be able to piggyback off the Zombie’s popularity and go on a proper run as South Korea’s next breakout star but to say it fizzled out is an understatement. At the time of the loss to Cub I remember the general feeling was that, even in defeat, Choi’s stock would only rise after such a great fight and he’d only learn and improve from it. But it seems he peaked that night and it’s been a sharp decline since. I’d love to see him come back with a bang here. Would be a real feel-good moment. Hyder Amil vs Jeong Yeong Lee might well be the sleeper on this card. They’re both very early into their UFC careers and not very well known but from the limited footage I’ve seen of both, I’m really looking forward to this. Amil’s undefeated at 9-0 and had fought in Bellator and LFA before appearing on DWCS last summer. He made his UFC debut in February and beat Fernie Garcia by second round TKO. I remember really liking what I saw in that fight. Not convinced he can go all the way. He’s already 34 and he did show signs of vulnerability at times against Garcia. But he was great to watch and you could just tell there’s gonna be a bunch of exciting fights to throw him into at 145. And Lee’s 28 years old with an 11-1 record and is on an 8 fight winning streak. He was on that Road To UFC thing, won the finals then beat Blake Bilder on points in his UFC debut in February this year. I remember him looking a right handful in that one. So yeah, 9-0 vs 11-1. Nice bit of matchmaking this. Brian Kelleher vs Cody Gibson is a pure filler, making up the numbers matchup. They’re both going nowhere. Kelleher turns 37 in August, has a proper journeyman record of 24-15 and he’s coming off 3 straight losses. I’ve quite enjoyed watching him at points over the years but he's never actually been that good if we’re being honest. We last saw him at UFC 296 in December and he was on the bad end of a vicious first round KO from Cody Garbrandt. Gibson’s almost a mirror image really. He turns 37 in September and he’s got a record of 19-10. He’s coming off back-to-back decision losses to Brad Katona and Miles Johns. Yeah, this is one of those situations where it feels like the matchmakers have made this as a ‘loser leaves’ fight. In this day and age though, with all these cards to fill, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re both kept around regardless. Miranda Maverick vs Dione Barbosa. Not arsed. Maverick seems quite likeable from snippets I’ve caught here and there. She’s 27 years old and 13-5 with 8 finishes and was scheduled to face Tracy Cortez here before Cortez was pulled from the card to headline a week earlier against Rose Namajunas in Denver. Maverick’s no future champion but she’s not the worst to watch from what I remember. She’s beat cheating bastard Priscila Cachoeira and possible racist Andrea Lee in her last couple of fights, so Maverick’s alright in my book. This’ll be our second look at Barbosa in the Octagon. She’s 32 years old, 7-2 with 3 submissions and she debuted at UFC 301 in Brazil in May, winning a decision over Ernesta Kareckaite in what I recall being a lacklustre fight. Loik Radzhabov vs Trey Ogden might be worth a look. I’ve only seen Radzhabov’s three UFC fights so far but he’s been a lot of fun to watch, win or lose. He made his UFC debut on the Jones vs Gane undercard in March last year and beat Esteban Ribovics in a cracking fight which probably 7 people watched. He got stopped by Mateusz Rebecki in his next fight but then bounced back in March this year, knocking out Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady in the third round of a very entertaining back and forth battle… ‘The Tajik Tank’! He’s 33 years old and 18-5-1 with 13 of his wins coming inside the distance. Ogden’s been in the UFC longer but much less of his run sticks out in the memory. He’s 34 years old, 17-6-0-1 and beat Kurt Holobaugh on points in his last fight in March. He did manage to get a win over Daniel Zellhuber in 2022 as well, and I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Zellhuber recently so there’s that. Hopefully this continues Radzhabov’s string of fun scraps and he picks up another win here. Luana Carolina vs Lucie Pudilova. Shite. Just shite. Don’t rate either of them. Carolina is Brazilian, 31 years old and has a 10-4 record. She somehow got a win over Loopy Godinez back in 2021 that I have zero recollection of and she’s coming off a couple of wins now but, in general, she’s crap. She’s always gonna be the woman who got spinning elbow KO’d by Molly McCann to me. Somehow made the ‘Meatball’ look like an imposing striker and had people talking silly about Molly as a contender and all sorts. I don’t think she’ll ever live that loss down. Pudilova’s Czech, 30 years old and 14-9. She had an abysmal stint in the UFC years ago, went away, got some wins over in the Oktagon promotion, returned to the UFC last year and has gone 0-2, losing back-to-back decisions to Joselyne Edwards and Ailin Perez since. Yeah, I’ll be skipping this. Even on a card as weak as this, it’s a fight that stands out as just being the dregs of the roster. Mohammed Usman vs Thomas Petersen. I can say right now there’s absolutely zero chance I’m watching this abomination. Heavyweight MMA is almost entirely arse water anyway but these two in particular are bottom of the barrel. I wanted to like Big Mo Usman just because I’m a fan of his vastly more talented brother, but he’s the shits. The fact he won TUF in 2022 shows just how rotten the competition on that season must’ve been if he was the best of the bunch. He’s 10-3 now and had won some of the shittiest fights you’ve ever skipped en route to his rotten points loss to Mick Parkin in March. A fight that bored me so much I’ll probably never watch Usman again unless his opponent is someone I’m seriously interested in. And Thomas Petersen isn’t that guy. He’s 29 years old (rough paper round) and 8-2 with all 8 wins being finishes. Doesn’t sound too bad by Heavyweight standards but then I saw he lost a decision to fucking Jamal Pogues in his UFC debut in February so fuck him too. Horrid. Apex again… Edited July 20 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 20 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 20 As if this card wasn’t weak enough as it is, the Iron Turtle vs Brad Tavares co-main is off. Here’s the (possibly) final card and start times now…if you give a shite. No? Don’t blame you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 22 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 22 (edited) Me in this thread… ? Completely skipped the prelims because life’s too short. Looked up the results and saw 4 of the 5 fights went the distance and from bits I read, the prelims were pretty wank. Can only imagine how horrendous that Thomas Petersen vs Mo Usman fight was. Thankfully I’ll never know. So yeah, no regrets skipping that shit. Doesn’t sound like I missed much at all. The main card was actually a fair bit more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Fair enough, the fact my expectations were rock bottom made it quite easy to surpass them but it was a pretty fun main card all in all. Well happy to see Virna Jandiroba not only get the win but to get the finish and extend her winning streak to 4 in a row. It was a lovely finish as well. Seems like we don’t see so many armbars these days and this was a beautiful one. If you read the opening post you’ll know I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this and when I stuck it on I was fully expecting and prepared to be skimming through big chunks of a dull 5 rounder. I was pleasantly surprised though. Turns out Jandiroba made it look pretty easy and straightforward in the end. She was always gonna be the way superior grappler, she just had to avoid the power of Lemos and she did a good job of that. Best Jandiroba’s looked in the UFC, from what I remember. As much as it wouldn’t feel like a big fight, I wouldn’t be against Jandiroba getting the next crack at Zhang Weili’s gold. Don’t be surprised if that’s next. Lemos was ranked #3 coming into this fight. The only name ranked higher who’s also a fresh opponent for Zhang is Tatiana Suarez. If Suarez is healthy I can see them putting her in there but Suarez is rarely healthy. There always seems to be something going on with her unfortunately. I can see Jandiroba getting the next shot. And while it’s not gonna set the box office alight, I don’t really mind that matchup. It’s a different style for Zhang to contend with at least. Steve Garcia has been sneakily becoming one of my favourite under the radar fighters to watch on these Fight Night cards over the last couple of years. Especially since he dropped to 145. I think the only reason nobody really talks about him is because he’s nearly always on these Apex cards that hardly anyone gives a shite about. If you usually skip the Apex cards but you have Fight Pass, I’d recommend typing his name in on there and going through his last 4 fights at least. Really fun fighter to watch and the drop to 145 seems to have lit a fire under him. I suspect he might’ve been watching some Wanderlei Silva fights in the locker room before coming out. Definitely had a bit of a Chute Boxe flavour to it, all that was missing was the Thai clinch and knees. Seung Woo Choi just buckled under the assault. Not sure where Garcia goes next. Lots of appealing matchups for him at Featherweight. He was asked by the media post-fight about getting a ranked opponent next and he’s on a 4 fight streak so why not? He did call out Dan Ige and Ige is ranked #14 at the minute. I’d like to see that. Or even Barboza who’s at #15. Sod it. Chuck Garcia in there and let’s see what’s what. Holobaugh vs Kruschewsky was the only fight to go the distance on the main card but it was alright, to be fair. Saw some talk like it was some serious banger, I wouldn’t go that far myself, but it was an entertaining, sloppy, scrappy fight and certainly didn’t bore me. There was no FOTN awarded but for me it was definitely Bruno Silva vs Cody Durden. What a scrap and a hell of a come from behind KO from Silva. Sent his mouthpiece into the empty 5th row of the Apex. Lost the first round, got dropped early in the second and was being outgrappled. It was looking like a pretty dire situation for the Brazilian. But he toughed it out, kept himself in the fight and made the most of the opportunity when it came. Loved it. I’ve got a love/hate thing going when it comes to Durden anyway. Seems a prick but I pretty much always thoroughly enjoy his fights. Silva chinning him with that uppercut and then the follow up elbows was very satisfying though. Hopefully Bulldog Bruno stays more active now. He is on a 4 fight win streak but it’s taken him since 2021 to accrue those 4 wins. I liked his callout of Brandon Moreno and it seems he’s got a bit of a grudge there but I can’t see him getting that fight. Plenty of fun matchups for him at Flyweight though, if he sticks around that is, and doesn’t go on another sabbatical now. Chuffed to see Korean Superboy finally get back in the win column. Crazy to think July 2016 was his last win, 8 years almost to the day. His last win was the same month as UFC 200, for fuck‘s sake. It’s taken until after UFC 300 but he got there in the end. Proper feel-good moment. He looked good, especially considering he was coming off about 18 months on the shelf. Algeo’s a tough guy as well. No world beater but certainly no pushover given Choi’s losing streak and layoff. Good win. Seen Algeo getting all kinds of stick on Twitter for ‘quitting’. Same old shite from the Wotsit fingered, never touched boob keyboard fight analysts. Laura Sanko mentioned it was probably a broken orbital and I think it was clear it was something like that. He’s never gonna be a UFC champion but why risk the rest of whatever’s left of his career to keep fighting through that on a nothing card at the Apex? Sometimes being smart over being a ‘warrior’ is the move. Hyder Amil vs Jeong Yeong Lee was madness for the minute and change it lasted. Wild start to the main card… Like the Garcia against Choi in the co-main, Amil just went full on berserker mode, swarmed Lee and overwhelmed him. I expected a good fight out of this despite seeing very limited footage of both. Amil had a really exciting debut and Lee looked a handful in his last fight. What I didn’t expect, was this to just immediately become a mad shootout and end about a minute into the first round. Can only imagine how refreshing this must’ve been at this point in the card for the people who’d sat through what sounds like a dead set of prelims. Sounds like this was very much a card of two halves. I’m just glad I caught the good half. If you skipped it, you missed nothing of real significance, but the whole main card was very entertaining. In the end, I’m just happy to see Jandiroba and Superboy come out victorious. Onto Manchester and 304! Edited July 22 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce85 Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 I’m so far behind on UFC, haven’t got round to watching any of the smaller shows recently, so really appreciate the right ups @wandshogun09! Hopefully there are some better cards on the horizon but it all seems a bit quite on big fights being announced recently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted July 22 Author Paid Members Share Posted July 22 (edited) 2 hours ago, Bruce85 said: it all seems a bit quite on big fights being announced recently. I was just thinking this myself earlier funnily enough. Feels like lately it’s just been underwhelming Fight Night headliners and loads of prelim level fight announcements. Surely there’s gonna be one of them videos from Dana any day now where he drops a whole bunch of big fights on us. Just off the top of my head, you have to think the Topuria vs Holloway, O’Malley vs Merab and Grasso vs Shevchenko 3 announcements are imminent. Then there’s stuff like the Jones vs Miocic thing they’re insisting on, Makhachev vs Tsarukyan and Pereira vs probably Ankalaev. Then there’s McGregor vs Chandler ? But yeah, think they’ll start confirming a lot of dates for this lot soon to start filling up the cards for the second half of 2024. Edited July 22 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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